4 ms·
It is really disheartening to see the sentiment around privacy erode like this. Fifteen or even ten years ago this would have been unanimously and vehemently op
by crims0n 4mo ago
It is really disheartening to see the sentiment around privacy erode like this. Fifteen or even ten years ago this would have been unanimously and vehemently opposed, but now it is somehow up for debate?
- satvikpendem 4mo agoOpposed, yeah right. People don't care back then just as they don't now. Only small groups of technical users like us care.
- Symbiote 4mo agoThere has been 15 more years of highly motivated psychologists tuning their social media systems to create addiction, time for those who've grown up through this to become adults, foreign interference with democracy etc. Though I think banning it for children is the wrong approach. Ban the addictive and dangerous features for everyone, adults included — no more infinite scroll, and no more feeds showing content from outside social connections.
- pigpop 4mo ago> no more feeds showing content from outside social connections So, kill all news agencies and reporters I guess? or would there be a carve out for incumbents so they can cement their market share? who controls the approval list?
- drdexebtjl 4mo agoNews agencies don’t do personalized curation. Every reader, at least from the same city, gets exactly the same content.
- TeMPOraL 4mo ago> Every reader, at least from the same city, gets exactly the same content That alone is a value add people don't realize even as they're losing it: it created a shared reality you and locals inhabited, that you could have a conversation about.
- iamnothere 4mo agoIt also helped quite a bit with narrative enforcement.
- TeMPOraL 4mo agoMaybe. But then at least there was a narrative, which is valuable in itself.
- ben_w 4mo agoIf a social media feed is purely social, news agencies have no more right to be there than to force themselves onto your table in a pub or a board games group. Even if you want expand from social and allow commercial activity on them, it should still only be whoever you actually chose. It's not like Fox News can interrupt a BBC News broadcast on TV, or The New York Times can substitute itself for your normal copy of The Cambridge News: you chose what source you get, not an algorithm. (And there is a specific named editor to blame if some false story gets in that wasn't checked first for actually being true).
- Symbiote 4mo agoThey get no special treatment. They would only show up in my feed if one of my contacts shares a link.
- umvi 4mo agoBan infinite scroll? Sounds like a slippery slope and also hard to enforce. I don't even know how you would craft such a law.
- LadyCailin 4mo agoThe same way you do age assurance laws, I guess.
- HDBaseT 4mo agoOn the fly with legislation that actively harms privacy whilst also not protecting anyone at all? Australia did this, now everything is worse with no tangible improvement to "child safety" or protection from brainrot.
- shevy-java 4mo ago> tuning their social media systems to create addiction Except this has nothing to do with social media nor with children nor with addiction.
- Symbiote 4mo agoThe first sentence of the article "under-16 social media ban".
- cultofmetatron 4mo agoThis is far more to do with different people having different definitions for what constitutes a genocide with one very well funded minority group having a large stake in their version being the accepted one.
- petermcneeley 4mo agoWhat are you afraid of?
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- oliwarner 4mo agoSocial media got worse. We've had time to witness the damage of a dopamine-doomscroll. I personally know children who've posted too much, and children who've been solicited directly by adults, both to try and meet and for nudes. And we've seen the complete lack of positive action from platforms. Roblox is full of paedophiles and Grok was letting you nudify your classmates just a few months ago. These places aren't suitable for kids. I don't want a ban on VPNs. That isn't being suggested, just making sure they're also age-checked. But some inconvenience is a price worth considering.
- sylos 4mo agoMaybe they should get the pedos out of the government instead of a foolish attempt at restricting and harming everyone else? It's not ever going to protect or make children safer. It never was.
- oliwarner 4mo agoWhy doesn't it make children safer? I'm trying to discuss this in good faith but that wasn't even an argument. A bland accusation wearing a tin foil hat.
- mjhay 4mo agoThe onus is you to show it makes children safer - you’re the one advocating these privacy-harming rules.
- Symbiote 4mo agoIf you insist on that approach, then for the sake of argument, you could pretend the discussion is about Australia which already has a similar law. You could argue the benefit to children in repealing it.
- Hizonner 4mo agoNope. The burden is on whoever wants to restrict people. If you want a new restriction, the burden is on you. If you want to keep an existing restriction, the burden is still on you.
- soupbowl 4mo agoUs peasants cannot stop this, Canada will roll this out soon also, its being rammed through no matter what people feel.
- tlb 4mo agoIn terms of political power, programmers are more like yeomen than peasants. Yeomen have power due to their essential skills because if a good fraction of them stopped working the system would collapse. (Whereas if peasants stop working, they just starve.) If a sufficient number of programmers said "We're not going to implement or support privacy-invading systems" the government would have to back down.
- phs318u 4mo agoSadly, your faith is entirely quixotic. Like all other segments of society, there’s always a cohort willing to do anything - regardless of ethics, legality or morality. They are entirely nihilistic, not giving a shit about anything or anyone. And it only takes a small number of such people to do great harm.
- FerretFred 4mo agoThey've somehow managed to breed several generations who's only criteria for "computing" is "it just works". All consumption, little-to-no understanding of how stuff works. As long as it does what it does, and it's "free", that's all that matters.
- downrightmike 4mo agoMore like the dumb people keep breeding and the magic rocks keep showing pretty colors
- Gud 4mo agoYou need to get out of your nations borders more. Not every country that exists is like that. People aren’t inherently “dumb”. Uneducated, sure.
- b00353 4mo ago[dead]
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> disheartening to see the sentiment around privacy erode like this Coders went from being civically active—calling their electeds and showing up to events to defend privacy in the 90s—to being comfortably rich and content with maybe voting in generals. That’s had a direct effect on policy quality.
- Ferret7446 4mo ago"And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Keir Starmer. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent." - totally benign film set in the UK
- port11 4mo agoThe glasses might be too rosy, I doubt people would’ve fought that much “ten or fifteen years ago”. The general public never gave much thought to privacy, security, or freedom of choice when it came to tech.